Microsoft Buys Tools Vendor DevBiz

Microsoft announced Monday it has bought out devBiz Business Solutions, which is known for producing tools for software development and .NET developers.

The announcement came during the first day of VSLive, Microsoft's Visual Studio conference being held in San Francisco.

DevBiz are the makers of TeamPlain Web Access, a Web interface for Team Foundation Server that allows managing work items, documents, reports and source control repositories.

"One of the most important aspects of VSTS [Visual Studio Team System] is that it brings the power of Visual Studio to the entire development team, providing tools for software architects, database professionals, testers and project managers. However, there are countless other individuals who have indirect roles in the development cycle that don't necessarily require the full functionality of Visual Studio; they just need access to one piece of it: Team Foundation Server," said Brian Harry, distinguished engineer on VSTS, in a statement posted on Microsoft's site.

According to Harry, Web Access for Team System lets users access a numbe of capabilities -- such as sharing documents and viewing source-control repositories -- through a Web interface

"With this acquisition, we can now offer both Windows and Web clients for TFS, making it that much easier for users to participate in the development lifecycle," Harry said. "In addition, the TeamPlain client provides cross-browser access to a core subset of functionality within TFS, making it even more appealing to a broader set of users."

Microsoft announced that TeamPlain Web Access is now available as a free download to all Team Foundation Server customers, and gave a partial roadmap of its intent for the acquisition.

TeamPlain Web Access will be re-released as Team System Web Access as part of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools, the company said in a statement. At a later date, the product will be integrated into a future version of Visual Studio Team System.

Founded in 2001, Rochester, N.Y.-based devBiz Business Solutions released version 1.0 of its TeamPlain Web Access for Microsoft Team Foundation Server a year ago.

Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services,, and .NET magazines. Contact him at [email protected].